PM hazy on seabed details

By RUTH BERRY political reporter

As the Government's deadline for drawing up its foreshore legislation approaches, it continues to fudge on the content as it tries to negotiate enough votes to get it passed.

Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday echoed Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen's attack on the Waitangi Tribunal report, labelling it contradictory and in some cases plain wrong.

But she continued to be much less definitive when it came to spelling out just where the Government was at over some of the more controversial aspects to be included in the legislation.

Aside from legal complexities, that is likely to be a result of the on-going and delicate negotiations under way to ensure the Government keeps some iwi on side and gets enough votes in the House.

Helen Clark was still unable to guarantee she had the parliamentary numbers yesterday, saying: "Well, you live in hope."

The tribunal's report has added ballast to claimants' and Maori MPs' resistance, which the Prime Minister is having to balance against the rise in Pakeha angst over race relations, as reflected by the National Party's growth in support.

The PM hinted yesterday that she might be prepared to consider vesting the foreshore and seabed in Crown ownership to secure the votes.

The tribunal found there was little difference between the concepts of "public domain" and Crown ownership, which would diminish any Maori backlash.

United Future prefers Crown ownership and New Zealand First will support the legislation if that change is made.

This would be an obvious fallback position for the Government if its Maori MPs block-voted against it.

Rumours that the Government may agree to the tribunal's suggestion to go back to the drawing board via some commission of inquiry were flatly rejected by spokesmen for both Dr Cullen and Helen Clark last night.

The Government had promised the legislation would be drawn up by the end of this month, although senior ministers have been signalling for weeks that may not happen.

The Government's response to the tribunal report continued to draw heavy criticism yesterday.

John Mitchell, a spokesman for Te Tau Ihu, the group that led the foreshore case, accused it of once again taking a predictably kneejerk reaction.

Ngati Kahu spokeswoman Professor Margaret Mutu warned the Government to take a closer look at the report, saying it had misrepresented some of the findings.

"The tribunal is quite clear that parliamentary sovereignty does exist; they don't anywhere indicate otherwise."

Professor Mutu was referring to Dr Cullen's claim that the report had included an implicit rejection of parliamentary sovereignty.

Helen Clark fuelled scepticism around the accuracy of the Government's response yesterday when she said: "What they [the tribunal] said was the Crown breached the treaty with respect of foreshore and seabed for 164 years. If that's the case it's interesting that there's never been a historical claim."

Grant Powell, a lawyer for the lobby group Te Ope Mana a Tai, said that revealed "she clearly has no idea of what she is talking about when it comes to this issue".